David Cameron can be a great PM - or a footnote

If the Tory leader does not rise above Blair-style mediocrity he will be chased quickly from office, writes Iain Martin

It is dawning on the Conservative party that it is going to win the next election. If that prospect frightens a few of you, it is really terrifying some senior Tories: "It will be blood, toil, tears and sweat time," says a shadow cabinet member. "We will inherit a house of horrors."

Until quite recently, viewing an outright Tory victory as probable has been unfashionable. Those of us who have thought for the last few years that it is about as close to a certainty as these things can ever be have ploughed a lonely furrow.

Fear of complacency defines the Cameroon circle, and perhaps an unforeseen event will rescue Gordon Brown. But this government looks like it is dying. Ministers admit it and despair of the PM's psychological inability to have a "hands up" moment by acknowledging his policies in the boom years were not perfect.

The country is approaching the point at which a large enough group of voters think Labour has simply had its time. This is the start of what might be termed the "kick the buggers out" phase. When it gets a proper grip on the public imagination it is invariably deadly.

There is no widespread enthusiasm for David Cameron, as his critics say – but then, after the giant fraud of New Labour it is only natural that there is scepticism about anyone claiming to have answers.

Are the Conservatives actually ready for office? As much as 16 months from an election the picture is still confused.

They do not have a coherent plan to deal with the economic catastrophe accentuated by Gordon Brown's addiction to debt and high spending. But after a long period in which they shadowed Labour policy, they have started to build one afresh from basic conservative principles. Cameron is trying to reconnect with ideas of thrift, productivity and responsibility. In government that will mean being extremely tough on spending. In opposition the problem is to what extent he can tell voters this without spreading fear. Consequently, the direction of travel is correct, but there is still too much nervousness about translating rhetoric into robust action.

Elsewhere, do the Cameroons have a governing philosophy? Yes, and it is this which gives them great potential, much more so than the Blairites. That group had a determination to win but a thin philosophical prospectus. Under the banner of modernisation, they were reconciled to elements of the Thatcherite economic settlement because voters demanded it. Once in office they planned higher taxes by stealth and public spending under the cover of responsible rhetoric. With the zeal and naivety of recent converts, they then worshipped the City and thought Brown an alchemist. What a mess has been the result.

The Cameroons are, in contrast, quite serious conservatives. Blair rifled around various academic circles and came up with the Third Way. Cameron is rooted in a conservative analysis of society and why people function as they do. The value of trusting free individuals and free institutions to co-operate to their mutual benefit with a more limited role for the state is not a ruse. It is conservatism and it appears to be in his political DNA.

It is there in the plans for education reform and the creation of "free schools" to smash the control of local education authorities. It is there too on crime, with zero tolerance policies and far greater democratic control over policing. It is not there on health, an issue the Tories have decided, mistakenly, to park as too difficult.

Cameron's conservatism will be tested in the fires of government. The country's finances will be in a shocking condition and he will get no honeymoon. The left and the unions will be well organised; strikes will follow. He will have to move quickly and take unpopular spending decisions to rescue and restore Britain to health.

What should be dawning on Cameron is that there will be no possibility of a mediocre Blairite ramble through a decade in power and on into a world of overpaid public speaking. He can do what needs doing and become a great prime minister. Or he can duck tough choices and be chased from office – just as Gordon Brown is going to be.